E-Mail This Article to a Friend Bring me back to life Drowning Pool resurface with a new singer, a porn star, and harder rock BY SEAN RICHARDSON

Back on August 14, 2002, Drowning Pool frontman Dave Williams was found dead of an undiagnosed heart disease on his tour bus. At the time, the Dallas-based band were riding high on the strength of the mosh-pit anthem "Bodies," which had landed them a spot on Ozzfest and a platinum album. Two years later, they’ve beaten the odds by regrouping with a new frontman, Jason Jones, with whom they recorded a new CD, Desensitized (Wind-up). It’s a hit, and the group are performing July 17 in Worcester and July 18 in Hampton Beach.

"When Dave passed, we started to question everything," admits drummer Mike Luce. "Sometimes, you’re going to wake up and you’re not going to want to get out of bed. Eventually, it’s up to you to pick yourself up by the bootstraps. With Jason coming in, it feels like a band again — we didn’t know it in the beginning, but it’s therapeutic. He’s helping us move forward, and we’re going to continue to grow. This may be the second Drowning Pool record, but it’s the first with Jason. So maybe the third one will be more of a progression."

Rock radio has latched onto "Step Up," a pummeling fight song and the first single from Desensitized. It probably helps that the song’s video features porn star Jesse Jane, who got along so well with the band that she agreed to get all oiled up and pose in a pentagram bikini for the album cover. "There’s supposed to be a lot more detail to the album cover, but you can only get away with so much," Luce snickers. "We wanted to raise the flag a bit to some of our influences. If you look at it, you can tell where the inspiration came from: Mötley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses, that kind of stuff."

The same bands also influenced the sound of the new disc, which was produced by Johnny K (Disturbed) and gives the finger to what the group perceive as the one-dimensionality of new metal. "I think K zero’d in and found more of the band we are at heart," Luce explains. "We wanted to go, ‘Hey, let’s experiment with guitar tones,’ instead of songs one through 11 all played through a Marshall stack on a selection of three different Les Pauls. On the first record, all the meters are pretty close, so we also wanted to experiment with that. We wanted to go, ‘Look, if we feel like writing the heaviest song we’ve ever done, let’s do it. But if something pretty comes out of it, like "This Life," then let’s do that, too.’ "

Drowning Pool share management with fellow Texans Damageplan, whose Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul are best known for their work with the legendary Pantera. Luce says the two bands spend a lot of time together drinking Black Tooths (the official drink of Pantera: a shot of Crown Royal with a splash of Coke) at Vinnie’s Dallas strip club, the Clubhouse. "We’ve got a table in the back that we all hang out at. There’s naked ladies, but you don’t always notice that when Darrell’s pounding Black Tooths down your throat. Next thing you know, it’s 1:30 and there’s ladies running around with no clothes on. You can’t be mad about that."

Drowning Pool perform next Saturday, July 17, at the Palladium, 261 Main Street in Worcester; call (508) 797-9696. Then on July 18, they’re at Hampton Beach Casino in New Hampshire; call (603) 929-4100.